“Why’d I have to say all that!!!” screams Nikolay.

Sitting in his shoddy apartment, he wonders why he’s just such a contradictory person. With him is a young man looking exhausted just waiting for his little tantrum to end. Just a plain shirt and shorts with a cigarette in mouth.

“Stop yelling. You’re gonna get in trouble with your neighbors,” says the smoker.

“Besides, despite the fact that you were trying to self-sabotage once again, it worked out fine. He even gave you a keychain.”

It’s a four-leaf clover. Shen had gifted him a good luck charm as a keychain to at least promise Nikolay to repay him.

“Well… I could have just kept my mouth shut like he said and then just stopped contacting him! Look what I’m dragging him into. And we’re going to be entirely clueless too! And you don’t want to tell us anything! And you can’t help me forever!”

He’s somewhat distraught. Though calm, collected, and constantly smiling around Shen, he’s panicky and overly pessimistic around his friend.

“But at least now you’re past the worst of it,” claims Nikolay’s friend. “I know I’m not exactly exemplary but I’ve gotten past that stage you’re in and you’re doing quite well despite the fact that I cannot tell you anything.”

They seem to have a peculiar relationship. Maybe even this helpful smoker’s name is something Nikolay is unaware of.

“But you’re doing well now! You’ve got a kid and a wife!” Nikolay shrieks as a rebuttal.

“I don’t have the heart to tell you everything. So I’m still that same old deplorable kid from back then. You’re doing so much better with a lack of information than I ever did knowing so much more than you did,” he claims.

He gets off Nikolay’s couch and prepares to head out. He hesitates as his hand lies on the door handle.

“Well… If you ever get desperate, somewhere in Bavaria there are the Magi. They seem to take kindly to outcasts like you. There’s also Cursed Child who seems to house any lost lamb for at least a few weeks. Should you ever be at your wit’s end, just try to get to Bavaria. They’ll probably find you before you can find them.”

“I guess with your kid and all that you can’t really risk it.”

“I’m sorry,” he says as he closes the door behind him.

Their goodbyes always seem so sad. This nameless smoker has been by Nikolay’s side pretty much since the day he has had these powers. Nikolay just happened to stumble upon this home and find this deceased stranger’s corpse by accident. In a panic, he discovered that he could shapeshift into others and just a few weeks later, the chain-smoker showed up to provide aid in exchange for his services. Tonight is another night where his services are needed.

“Another nifty one, huh? Hostile or friendly?”

Nikolay is flying over the city as he senses some kind of anomaly. He observes an incredibly small crack in space that would be impossible to see for the human eye. He flicks it a few times before it reacts. The cracks spread around Nikolay before completely shattering and revealing an almost empty void. The bright white light that stretches into infinity seems to have no origin or end. Within the void lie three meters tall and a meter wide evenly spaced out from one another by about ten meters. He can spot something golden somewhere in the distance not entirely sure if whatever he’s facing is hostile.

“Do you understand me?” he asks.

Its only response is that of the mirrors. Though they wouldn’t reflect Nikolay’s image just a few seconds ago, they’re perfectly displaying him in full vibrancy. Some remain empty leaving Nikolay a little uneasy and uncertain on whether or not they can communicate.

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

His image nods unlike the real him signaling a common understanding. They smile now that they know some form of communication between the two of them is possible.

“Should I get closer or ask for permission first?” he wonders.

“Am I allowed to get closer?” he asks.

It nods.

He flies toward the source of light as he summons a few droplets of blood. They stretch out into frames and turn into solid pictures revealing several girls no older than toddlers. The mirror images shrug as he draws closer. Finally, he’s faced with the source of the golden shine. It’s just one warm ball of light surrounded by metal plates that likely can form a shield completely blocked it off from the outside world.

“Have you met any of these girls?” he asks.

The space rumbles as a few mirrors shatter. His image disappears from all of them as its plates shield the sentient sphere.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall… Mirror, I guess? Have you met any of these girls?” he asks again more intense than ever.

Aged-up versions in their early teens are displayed on several mirrors as the space begins to rumble again. Of these dozen girls, several had their heads incinerated by a speeding light, few were crushed by the metal plates, and one of them was swallowed whole by the ball of light vaporized upon coming in contact with it.

“You killed them, didn’t you?” His gaze now is that of disdain.

Two metallic balls with a red blinking light are now positioned between Nikolay’s fingers. His hand moves closer as if to deliver the finishing blow. Yet suddenly his kneecaps are gone as everything beneath them floats away fully detached from his body. In shock, the spheres explode without warning scarring his hand. He floats away in shock wherein a few seconds of hesitation allow one of the metal plates to come off hitting him in the chin. Unable to move due to the concussion, he panics as his body goes limb. Several mirrors around him have shattered.

“What just happened?? How did it do that? Was it that speeding light???”

His thoughts spiral and wander as he, in a panic, gets his body to fly in the direction his eyes are facing. In his attempt to fly to safety, he spots a humanoid figure of light wielding some kind of cone-shaped weapon. It’s bouncing from mirror to mirror at increasing speeds before it becomes too quick to observe. Every mirror it has bounced off from shatters after contact. Those few moments he spent distracted observing that creature, he bumps into a mirror flying straight through it before the light could ever reach him. Flying straight through the mirror it somehow shatters behind him even though it should have shattered on impact.

He can feel himself growing more mobile as he regains control of his bodily functions. Nikolay spends a few moments surveying his environment. The closest shattered mirror he can observe is about a kilometer away from his location other than the mirror right behind him

“Did I just teleport?” he asks himself. With just a few more seconds of observation, he can tell that he’s in a different part of this monster’s space.

“Teleportating mirrors, metal plates that shield from harm, some kind of minion tearing through victims at increasing speeds, creating images and recollecting memories through them… It’s called Mirror yet what should be the master of this space is just some stupid ball of light with a metal shield…”

His legs are slowly but steadily growing back into their original state. The “master” seems like a coward but reacts angrily to its name. Maybe he can use that to his advantage.

He spots the speeding light once again trying to predict which angle it is bound to attack from but with the way these mirrors work, he has an idea as to how he can fight this thing entirely unscathed. His leg stumps are close to fully regenerating into functional legs. Nikolay hides behind a mirror wondering if he should just teleport again before ultimately deciding that it’s best to fight.

With an outstretched arm pointing behind him and another one of those exploding gadgets lying within his palm, he looks into the mirror, knowing that it won’t show any reflections. Suddenly, the little tool explodes, taking with it his lower arm. The speeding light is now right behind him. It has stopped in its tracks, floating away due to the explosion.

Nikolay immediately dispatches blood spikes from his damaged arm and shatters every mirror in the vicinity.

“It gains speed by bouncing off mirrors and slows down after some unknown condition. Not that it matters anyway… With nothing to bounce off of, it’s entirely defenseless. I can kill it.”

The spikes of blood tear it apart shrinking in the process due to the heat partially evaporating them.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall; you whore are not the fairest of them all!” he screams knowing that he’s a kilometer away from the master of this space.

The space violently rumbles as he spots a beam of light drawing closer. He flies away in haste terrified that he had possible gone too far weaving between mirrors in hopes of evading this attack. However, the beams grow more numerous as the original one splits and spreads by bouncing off of mirrors. Nikolay crashes right into a mirror hoping that he would teleport yet it seems that not all of these mirrors seem to carry that ability.

“I thought it had no control over the teleporting mirrors!” he thinks dumbfounded by the sheer luck he had earlier not helping him out again.

Some shatter before he can reach them clearly ordered to do so by the hostile girl-murdering being. He summons several dozen bombs to intercept the beams He barely escapes this assault on him before flying into a mirror that sends him near the sphere of light within its protective sphere of cowardice. His opponent stops spewing its beam and closes the hatch it was shooting light from as it flies off in an attempt to escape. Even it doesn’t know which mirror initiates teleportation meaning it has to crash through several of them before escaping its pursuer.

“Fucking coward!”

Now that all his limbs are regenerated, he lets the currently least needed limbs, his legs, explode into droplets of blood and create several hundred spikes sent out just to destroy every mirror that exists within this space. Due to prior run-ins with such monsters, he concludes that this space is limited and loops in on itself. After venturing just a few dozen kilometers one should end up at their point of origin which would be impossible to tell without some kind of marker due to the objects inhabiting this space.

Finally, now that all the mirrors are gone, it can’t flee any longer. It can only attempt to shoot down Nikolay with its beam. He draws closer and closer with a dagger made of his hardened blood. One jab is enough to kill it as the space around him shatters along with the monster. The only thing left behind is the peculiar structure it had left behind.

“Another one down, another week’s worth of groceries secured!” he tells himself utterly exhausted.

The object left behind is just a crescent moon with a mirror connecting the tips of the ends of the crescent along with a thin cross with spiky ends lodged into the crescent moon pointing at the ground. It slowly floats into Nikolay’s palms lightly hovering above them. A remaining bubble of blood swallows it whole.

“Better head to that park to replenish some energy,” he thinks as he flies off exhausted.